Xiaomi Sound Move

The Xiaomi Sound Move is a portable wireless speaker from Xiaomi: battery-powered, carried between rooms and outdoors, and connecting over Wi-Fi at home and Bluetooth away from it.

Xiaomi’s position is value. The company builds competent hardware at prices well below the established audio brands, and sells largely through its own channels.

What Apple Home actually does with it

This is an AirPlay 2 speaker rather than a HomeKit accessory.

• It appears in the Home app as a speaker you can play to, and as an AirPlay target in Control Centre.
• You can assign it to a room and group it with HomePods for synchronised multi-room audio.
• Siri can send music to it by room name.
• It can be the audio output in a scene or an automation.

You cannot switch it on or set its volume from the Home app the way you would a light. Those stay with the speaker and its own app.

Away from Wi-Fi it falls back to Bluetooth, at which point Apple Home cannot see it.

Before you buy

Check the market. Xiaomi’s audio products are often released in China first and reach other countries later or not at all, so confirm availability, the app language and the warranty before ordering from an importer.

Portable speakers live or die by their battery and their weatherproofing. Check both ratings against how you actually intend to use it.

Specifications